National competitiveness has become a misnomer, as competitiveness is increasingly understood as a regional phenomenon and regions are not confined to the boundaries of the nation state. This book focuses on the Port of Rotterdam and its hinterland – i.e. the Lower Rhine and the Ruhr area. A transnational perspective is imperative to understand the historical trajectories of the port, the hinterland and the region itself. This book brings geography and the transnational study of regions back into the historical discipline, linking places to larger geographical scales and to systems of production and consumption and the global chains in which they are organised. This book will be of interest to scholars and practitioners in urban studies, urban planning, public policy, geography and political science.

This book describes how, after the Second World War, the Labour Party assumed leadership of the International Socialist Movement, thanks to the achievements of the Attlee Government. International Secretary Denis Healey guided the reconstruction of the Socialist International through the early Cold War, making the British vision for socialist internationalism prevail over the French and Belgian. At first, the provisional Socialist International (International Socialist Conference and Comisco) supported cohabitation with pro-communist socialists and the USSR, but with the Sovietisation of Eastern Europe it committed to militant anti-communism. Ambiguity between the Labour Party and Labour Government influenced British policy in Austria, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Italy and Poland, while the characterization and stereotypes of Eastern and Southern Europe shaped the language and actions of the British. Furthermore, the book shows how international contacts and the British and Swedish model encouraged the transition of socialist parties to responsible government parties fully embracing Western democracy and prepared the ideological revision of the 1950s.

What makes a magazine in South Africa promote Scandinavian unity among its immigrant readers and why does a Swedish king endorse attempts to influence pan-Scandinavian opinion through a transnational media event in Sweden, Norway and Denmark? Can portraits of exotic Lapplanders in the British press, enthusiastic accounts of the welfare state in post-war travel literature and descriptions of the liberal Nordic woman as a metaphor for a freer society in Franco Spain really be bundled together under a joint label of 'Nordicness'? How is it that despite the variety of images of the Nordic region that are circulating, we still find this recurring idea of a shared Nordic identity? These are some of the questions the current volume seeks to answer. Covering the time period from the early nineteenth century up until the present and encompassing case studies from Britain, Spain, Poland, and South Africa, as well as from the Nordic countries, contributors to the volume investigate the images that have been presented of the Nordic region in the media in and outside of the Nordic countries, how such images have been shaped by mechanisms of mediation, and the channels through which they have been distributed. The chapters address both specific cases such as media events and individual publications, as well as the structural and institutional settings for mediating the Nordic region.

Multinational Enterprise and Transnational Regions offers an innovative approach to the study of the history of transnational economic regions. The Rhine valley is such a region comprising the cities and areas along the Rhine river and its tributaries. The transition from coal to oil that unfolded between 1945 and 1973 rapidly transformed the region, shattering some of the old river-based connections and creating new ones with the introduction of large-scale cross-border oil pipelines. Multinational enterprises shaped these new regional connections but divergent national government responses gave rise to differentiated development in different parts of the Rhine valley. Multinational Enterprise and Transnational Regions argues that processes of regional change should be understood from transnational interconnections rather than from local or national perspectives. This book uses a transnational business history methodology to tease out the region’s transformation and to circumvent the national bias in public sources. It will be of relevance to academics and researchers with an interest in regional and transnational European history, international business, environmental history, and business history, as well as practitioners interested in the oil industry, energy and energy history, business history and international business, and associated disciplines.

Shows that networks in European integration governance were not a phenomenon that developed in the 1980s out of a 'hollowing out' of the nation-states in the 1970s. Based throughout on newly accessible sources, the authors discuss various networks and show how they contributed to constitutional choices and policy decisions after World War II.

The Regional Economics of Technological Transformations provides a comprehensive overview of 4.0 technological transformations in Europe and their socio-economic impact, with a particular emphasis on the regional dimension of the phenomena. The authors employ extensive original data and robust quantitative methods to analyse technological change in all regions of the 27 EU countries plus the UK and shed light on this trend for Europe and beyond. Structured in four parts, the book first looks at conceptual definitions, empirical measurements and expected impacts on both the economic performance (GDP and productivity growth) and the labour market, and then moves on to analyse where 4.0 technological transformation actually takes place in Europe and the reasons for this. Next, it offers original empirical evidence on the impacts of the different transformations, and of their intertwined effects, on both the economy and the society. Finally, the book explores the policy implications of this technological transformation. This book will be valuable reading for advanced students, researchers and policymakers working across regional economics, industrial economics and innovation policy. It will be of primary interest to regional scientists interested in the field, who may enjoy the conceptual and empirical solutions to the study of a very complex, timely and still largely unexplored theme. Sociologists, engineers and political economists can benefit from the book’s analysis, noting the urgency of the development of new ethical rules governing the new digital and labour markets. Finally, the book may appeal to policymakers interested in opportunities to increase regional competitiveness and sustainability goals through the advent of 4.0 technologies.

This book explores the relationship between families, firms, and regions and the extent to which these relationships contribute to regional economic and social development. Although family business participation in economic activities has been a common phenomenon since pre-industrial societies, and its importance has evolved throughout time and across spatial contexts, the book suggests that these factors have often been neglected in family business and regional studies. Taking this research gap into account, the book aims to deepen our understanding of the role family firms play in the regional economy. In particular, it explores two seldom studied questions. Firstly, what role do family firms play in regional development? Secondly, how do formal and informal regional contexts shape family firm operations and performance? This book presents a model of "regional familiness" and uses themes such as productivity, networks and competitiveness to shed new light on family businesses. Moreover, it evaluates the juxtaposition and cross-fertilisation between family business and regional studies to encourage the cross-fertilisation of ideas, theories, and research methods between the two fields. Bringing together leading experts in entrepreneurship, regional economics and economic geography, this book will be valuable reading for advanced students, researchers and policymakers interested in family firms, regional studies and economic geography.

Throughout history rivers have always been a source of life and of conflict. This book investigates the Central Commission for the Navigation of the Rhine’s (CCNR) efforts to secure the principle of freedom of navigation on Europe’s prime river. The book explores how the most fundamental change in the history of international river governance arose from European security concerns. It examines how the CCNR functioned as an ongoing experiment in reconciling national and common interests that contributed to the emergence of European prosperity in the course of the long nineteenth century. In so doing, it shows that modern conceptions and practices of security cannot be understood without accounting for prosperity considerations and prosperity policies. Incorporating research from archives in Great Britain, Germany, and the Netherlands, as well as the recently opened CCNR archives in France, this study operationalises a truly transnational perspective that effectively opens the black box of the oldest and still existing international organisation in the world in its first centenary. In showing how security-prosperity considerations were a driving force in the unfolding of Europe’s prime river in the nineteenth century, it is of interest to scholars of politics and history, including the history of international relations, European history, transnational history and the history of security, as well as those with an interest in current themes and debates about transboundary water governance. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

What makes a magazine in South Africa promote Scandinavian unity among its immigrant readers and why does a Swedish king endorse attempts to influence pan-Scandinavian opinion through a transnational media event in Sweden, Norway and Denmark? Can portraits of exotic Lapplanders in the British press, enthusiastic accounts of the welfare state in post-war travel literature and descriptions of the liberal Nordic woman as a metaphor for a freer society in Franco Spain really be bundled together under a joint label of 'Nordicness'? How is it that despite the variety of images of the Nordic region that are circulating, we still find this recurring idea of a shared Nordic identity? These are some of the questions the current volume seeks to answer. Covering the time period from the early nineteenth century up until the present and encompassing case studies from Britain, Spain, Poland, and South Africa, as well as from the Nordic countries, contributors to the volume investigate the images that have been presented of the Nordic region in the media in and outside of the Nordic countries, how such images have been shaped by mechanisms of mediation, and the channels through which they have been distributed. The chapters address both specific cases such as media events and individual publications, as well as the structural and institutional settings for mediating the Nordic region.

This book explores the relationship between transnational and local Islam as expressed in public discourse and policy-making, as represented in the local press. It does so against the background of local governments in majority Muslim regions across Indonesia promoting and passing regulations that mandate forms of social or economic behaviour seen to be compatible with Islam. The book situates the political construction of Islamic behaviour in West Sumatra, and in Indonesia more generally, within an historical context in which rulers have in some way engaged with aspects of Islamic practice since the Islamic kingdom era. The book shows that while formal local Islamic regulations of this kind constitute a new development, their introduction has been a product of the same kinds of interactions between international, national and local elements that have characterised the relationship between Islam and politics through the course of Indonesian history. The book challenges the scholarly tendency to over-emphasise local political concerns when explaining this phenomenon, arguing that it is necessary to forefront the complex relationship between local politics and developments in the wider Islamic world. To illustrate the relationship between transnational and local Islam, the book uses detailed case studies of four domains of regulation: Islamic finance, zakat, education and behaviour and dress, in a number of local government areas within the province.